Constant reader

There is a girl who reads my material every day—dreams of me. No—it’s not like that; actually, she’s my sister—though not by blood, by aces; that is to say, chance. She was dealt to me when I was seventeen, put her arm under mine and said, “You’re my brother”—and so we have always been fraternal.

We drifted—and, in fact, she does not know me now, even as she always reads me; but you cannot put apart what was decreed by chance—and in another place I will regard her with a chaste eye; and be, as sexless ones, always in sororal grace.

I know who she should have married—though they split, yet I arranged, by subtle action, not like Iago, to join them back together. He disappointed, though—was too weak. His second chance was blown because he lacked conviction to take her over his shoulder and carry her away, he just played meek and begged for rescue. Now there is an empty crib where a child should be.

I’m a joker—which is to say, I’m nothing. I can be anything I choose, being zero. Yet even I can only open a path to infinity—you have to step through it alone.